


Two Daughters

by iridescentglow



Category: Gymnastics RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-17
Updated: 2013-02-17
Packaged: 2017-11-29 14:41:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/688133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iridescentglow/pseuds/iridescentglow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 2008, all Rebecca wanted was to be a Liukin. In 2012, the family bond has begun to feel like a noose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Daughters

_**2008.** _

In 2008, all Rebecca wanted was to be a Liukin.

She lived for the times they’d invite her over for dinner.

The Liukins never ate before eight. As evening drew in, Anna would tut and sigh and wind her hair up into a knot on top of her head. “I have nothing!” she’d say, opening the fridge door. Then, half an hour later, she would serve up something mysterious and inventive. Not always tasty, perhaps, but a work of art more than a meal.

Compared to Rebecca’s home life, dinner at the Liukins’ seemed so unstudied. Her own family ate like clockwork at 6:30 every evening when her dad got home from work. They ate lamb chops or hamburgers or meatloaf or, on days when her mom was at work, gloopy microwave meals.

Becca’s parents only drank alcohol on special occasions. But at dinner with the Liukins, a bottle of vodka frequently appeared on the table, and Rebecca and Nastia were both allowed a sip. Becca felt giddy out of proportion with the amount of alcohol she’d consumed. She loved the Liukins’ chic, relaxed house. She loved its expanses of polished marble and the pale, tan couch, which was slippery to the touch. Everything about the house felt glamorous.

After a night at the Liukins’, Becca’s own house felt stuffy. Even her parents’ marriage felt boring to witness. Becca knew that her parents loved each other, because they wore wedding rings. Their love was matter-of-fact and middle-aged. But Anna and Valeri were in love like teenagers.

Reclining in her chair, feet propped up on Valeri’s lap, Anna would run her fingers through her hair, letting it fall from its loose top knot. Valeri’s eyes would follow her motions and his hands would creep up her bare legs. Rebecca would watch them, mesmerized, and then quickly snatch her gaze away. If they noticed her glances, however, they didn’t show it.

Occasionally, Anna and Valeri would slip into Russian without realizing. As Anna carried the dirty dishes through to the kitchen, she’d call out in Russian, her voice rich and low in its mother tongue.

Nastia would always roll her eyes and call back in impatient English.

“ _Mom_ , we have a _guest_. Speak English!”

No, don’t, Rebecca wanted to say. The sound of Russian, so strange and textured, made her scalp tingle. It made plain old Plano recede and something more magical appear in its place. Maybe tonight she would ask Nastia to begin teaching her Russian.

Anna appeared in the doorway.

“Becca’s not a guest,” she said reproachfully. “She’s family.”

Anna gifted her with a small, fleeting smile, and Becca smiled back so hard it hurt.

Later, Nastia shyly looped her index finger around Becca’s pinkie, and the two of them walked upstairs like that. Becca never did get a chance to ask about learning Russian. Every thought vanished from her head as Nastia leaned in and kissed her softly.

In that moment, Becca felt that she belonged.

*

_**2012.** _

Valeri called her “Nastia” sometimes.

In a past life – in another quad – it was something that would have thrilled her. She must have daydreamed about it endlessly. She’d imagined Nastia retiring and she, Rebecca, slipping into her role: Olympic champion, beloved daughter.

But Valeri only called her Nastia when he was frustrated.

His voice rose and he forgot himself. Rebecca never did learn Russian. No matter. She knew all the Russian she needed now. She didn’t know the poetry of Russian; not the caressing, romantic words. But she knew the swear words. She knew the Russian for not good enough.

Valeri called her Nastia simply because he was thinking about Nastia.

Becca glanced across the gym, to where the ghost of OGM past was working out. Nastia got two hours of Valeri’s time and then Becca got two hours of Valeri’s time. Right now, it was Becca’s time – it was Becca’s _turn_ – but Valeri was still thinking about Nastia.

_How are things in the gym? How are things with Nastia?_

Rebecca remembered a reporter at Classic asking her the question. She remembered the way the woman leaned forward, sucking her lower lip into her mouth. Waiting.

Of course, Becca knew how to answer. Even before her endless media training – even before she’d gotten an agent and the words in her mouth had stopped being her own – Becca had known how to give a calculated answer. She’d known, instinctively, never to reveal too much about her feelings.

Her answer was bland, an easy lie – “it’s great to train alongside your friend!” – but the thought lodged in her mind. She found herself recalling it a lot. It gave her a hot, prickly feeling.

The reporter had probably only wanted a generic friends-turned-competitors story. That’s how it should have been, perhaps. She’d seen it happen to other people. The strain of competition often wore friendship bonds thin. Laughter turned to small talk. Smiles dimmed, losing their sincerity. A gradual frost appeared, as the Olympics loomed and the number of spots available to the two of them shrank to one.

That wasn’t what happened at all.

There was nothing frosty about Rebecca’s relationship with Nastia. Of course, there was also nothing _nice_ about their relationship.

Nastia was hungriest after a bad workout. Which basically meant she was hungry all the time.

Nastia grabbed her roughly, twisting her wrist, and pulled her into the gloomy office at the end of the corridor. She slammed the door shut and turned the key. Rebecca wondered if Valeri suspected what they did in his office each day. He probably gave Nastia the key so that she could have a place to meditate.

Valeri’s office was practically the only room in the whole of WOGA that locked. Even the shower cubbies didn’t lock. What if a 12-year-old slipped and fell in the shower and no one could reach her? _What if, what if._ This whole place was built for 12-year-olds, Becca reflected bitterly. She and Nastia were Alices in Wonderland, doomed to grow and grow while WOGA stayed small.

Nastia pinned Rebecca against the closed door and stared her down. Nastia’s cheeks were flushed – with exertion, but also with an angry kind of desire. Her skin gleamed with sweat. There was chalk on her neck, chalk in her hair, chalk everywhere. She looked undone, yet uncaring. This wasn’t the effortless, ethereal Nastia of old, the one that Becca had idolized from afar. 

Four years ago, their relationship had felt like child’s play, full of soft kisses and barely-brushing fingertips. To Becca, it had felt like a daydream. Nastia had always seemed so close to slipping away from her. Then, of course, she really had slipped away. To the post-Olympic tour; to high-profile boyfriends; to Life-with-a-capital-L. For a long time, the only Nastia in the gym was the one who stared down at her from the walls, larger than life and frozen in a smile.

Now that Nastia was back, she was different. The Nastia in front of Becca now was solid and flawed and—

Angry.

Angry at her father, angry at Becca, angry at herself. There was nothing effortless or ethereal about her in this moment. The effort – the mixture of sweat and chalk – it gathered on her skin and pooled in her collarbones.

Nastia wasn’t the only one who was different, though. Becca was different, too.

The Becca of four years ago wouldn’t have had the courage to slip her fingers beneath the elastic of Nastia’s training shorts.

Nastia narrowed her eyes, her expression hard. But her body keened to Becca’s touch. By the time Becca peeled down her underwear aside and found the honey between her legs, Nastia was panting. Becca slid her fingers inside and Nastia made a tiny growling sound in the back of her throat. She leaned forward suddenly, kissing Becca hard – hard enough that Becca’s bottom lip caught briefly on the sharpness of Nastia’s teeth.

Nastia rocked against Becca’s fingers and the two of them found a rhythm: a kissing, biting, thrusting rhythm that drove away the frustration. For a moment or two, at least.

*

“It’s almost done, isn’t it,” Nastia said later, as her fingers fumbled to unlock the door.

Becca, who’d drifted away to arm’s length, looked at her in surprise. Nastia – this Nastia, new Nastia – didn’t usually want to talk.

“It’s almost finished,” Nastia said. Her eyes bored into Becca, demanding an answer to her oblique non-question.

Was she talking about the two of them – their ( _air quotes_ ) relationship? Was she talking about the Olympics – her much-vaunted, much-thwarted comeback? Or were the two things the same, in a twisted kind of way?

Certainly, come fall, both of their lives would change forever. Becca had seen the glossy brochures for NYU that Nastia left lying around. It wasn’t hard to imagine a shiny-haired, elegant Nastia stepping into one of those cover photos. Maybe college – and Life-with-a-capital-L – beckoned for Becca, too, although when closed her eyes and tried to imagine it, she could see only static.

Without answering, Rebecca pushed past Nastia, through the door and out of Valeri’s office. She forced herself to remain upright and keep walking. 

_If only—_

Rebecca had heard the whispers around the gym and at competitions.

 _If only you could put them together_. That’s what everyone said. _Becca’s strength, Nastia’s grace. Becca’s endurance, Nastia’s stuck landings. Combine the two of them and you’d have it all._

At this point, they are each only half a gymnast.

Two halves.

Two daughters.


End file.
